


Ideally, I'm Yours

by AlliTime



Category: Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Blanket spoiler warning for all of the Defenders and Daredevil season 3, F/M, Jessica swears a ton, One Shot, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Swearing, Temporary Character Death, This is literally only rated T because of Jessica's foul mouth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:26:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25083844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlliTime/pseuds/AlliTime
Summary: “Well, what’s it say?”“It says, ‘who the hell are you?’”“Ah,” Matt says. “We’re going to have a great start, then.”Meanwhile, Jessica Jones wonders why in a world of handwritten soulmarks, her soulmate has to type. Her leading theory is "they have no hands" but, to be fair, she hasn't given it much thought.--Jessica/Matt Soulmate AU, because this tiny ship needed a soulmate fic. Skims through the events of the Defenders, so beware of spoilers.
Relationships: Frank castle/Karen page (mentioned), Franklin "Foggy" Nelson/Marci Stahl (mentioned), Jessica Jones/Matt Murdock
Comments: 15
Kudos: 194





	Ideally, I'm Yours

Matt is sitting with Foggy in their dorm room at Columbia University when the clock strikes midnight and Matt turns eighteen. Matt can feel a burning itch on the left side of his neck, and Foggy gasps.

“Oh, dude, it’s--it’s, like _growing_.”

“Well, what’s it say?”

“It says, ‘who the hell are you?’”

“Ah,” Matt says. “We’re going to have a great start, then.”

Jessica Jones knows her soulmate is going to be an ass, if she ever meets them. She also knows that, for some reason, they’re going to know her before she knows them, and that irritates the hell out of her.

Another thing that she knows about her soulmate is that he almost definitely doesn’t have hands. She knows this because soulmarks are written in the handwriting of your soulmate, and she has her words typed across her ribs in fucking Courier Sans.

 _Jessica Jones? Stop talking_.

What kind of an asshole starts a conversation that way? He knows enough shit about her to know her _name_ and then has the nerve to tell her to shut up?

Jessica takes a long drink of whisky and shakes her head. Maybe the whole cosmic being or god or whatever who was in charge of the soul bond thing decided to do a public service and take two jerks out of the dating pool.

Or maybe it was the kind of god who likes to stir the pot.

Sometimes Matt forgets about soulmarks. It’s not like he sees them all the time. But one night, when Karen’s working late with her sleeves rolled up, Foggy asks about her mark, which is apparently there, and it reads, _Where did you get that?_

She says she hasn’t met her soulmate yet, or if she has, it wasn’t requited, and it was just a passing comment about her bag or her dress or her shoes. Matt knows that Foggy’s mark says, _Hi, I’m Marci_ , and Marci’s says, _How you doin’? I’m Foggy._

He’s a little jealous of how unambiguous it is for them, and how they’ve been together ever since.

“And what’s Castle’s soul mark?” Foggy asks as they look over Castle's file. “Does it say?”

“‘We know because we heard it given,’” Karen reads. “What does that even mean?”

“At least that’s rare enough that you don’t hear it every day,” Matt offers. “Mine’s ‘who the hell are you?’”

“You hear that often?” Karen asks amusedly.

 _No,_ Matt thinks, _but Daredevil sure does._

Hogarth hints to Foggy about Jessica Jones, a freelancer with super abilities. Foggy talks Matt into going, and by the time Matt has had Foggy tell him the basics of her file, he just _knows_ that something is about to happen. He can feel it. Something is special about this one.

So when he finds out Jessica Jones is being interrogated, he opens the door without preamble and says, “Jessica Jones? Stop talking.”

There’s a pause. Her heartbeat spikes. And it’s that heartbeat spike that gives her next words all the clarity in the world.

“Who the hell are you?”

“My name is Matthew Murdock,” he says, smiling. “I’m your attorney.”

When it finally does happen, it blindsides Jessica so hard that she can’t see for a minute, and then she’s worried that there was some sort of soulmate-trait-transfer-thing that no one had told her about, because the disability hire who has just walked into the station is _blind_ , and now she feels _blind_ , and when she can see again, he’s smiling at her. Like an asshole. At least she’d gotten that right.

But her soulmate--Matt--is also really fucking weird, she learns. He parkours around New York in a suit like he’s in an ad for some body spray targeted towards men who think big muscles and big dicks will make up for their lack of personality. Oh--and also like he can see. That’s weird, too.

But Matt has so much personality that he needs an alter ego to contain it. He’s the devil of Hell’s Kitchen. She realizes that fact sometime between when he steals her scarf to pull a blind Zorro and the fact that he can hear neon. He must be able to see through his super senses, then.

And yet, he still must not be able to handwrite, because his words are on her ribs in Courier Sans.

Later, when she’s checking him out in the suit and she’s pretty sure he can tell, she lies and says, “The scarf looked better,” but what she means is, “ _Fuck_ , I’m horny for the devil and that’s ironic.”

When the building crumbles and Matt’s inside, she learns that Matt decided to tell his last words to _Finn_ , and they were, “Protect my city.”

“Asshole,” Jessica mutters, blinking back tears and immediately going to go find a drink.

When Matt wakes, everything hurts and his ear is ringing. He can hear Reverend Lantom and some women--nuns--around him.

“Where is she?” he manages to ask one of the sisters.

“Who?”

“Jessica.”

Matt shows up at her apartment two months after the explosion with a bouquet of roses. Jessica takes one look at them and says, “You should’ve brought whisky.”

She goes to shut the door in his face, but his foot is in the door jamb. He smiles and takes out his other hand from behind his back to reveal a bottle of Winston. Her favorite brand.

“Was that in my fucking file, too?”

“You smell like it.”

“Weird,” she says, then twists it open and takes a drink. “You’re still not forgiven.”

“I’m a Catholic. I’m used to that.”

She snorts. “Shove the flowers up your ass, Murdock.”

Then she walks back over to the desk, leaving the door wide open.

“So, that means come in?” he guesses, shutting the door behind him.

“Wow. With deduction like that, you’ll put me out of business.”

He props his cane next to the door and drops the roses there, too. Then he crosses over to her and smiles. “You know, with saving New York and all, we never really got to discuss the soulmate thing.”

“Yeah, it’s about time I gave you some shit for that. I’ve had your terrible first sentence typed across my ribs for _ever_. Do you know how many of my hookups have asked me if you’re a computer? My go-to answer was that you didn’t have any hands to write with.”

He loosely tangles his fingers with hers, holding her free hand in both of his. “I have two hands. Sorry to disappoint.”

The sentence isn't a lot, but it's accompanied by a terribly dorky smile that makes the corner of her mouth tug upward.

She puts her whisky down. “Where’s yours?”

He lowers the collar of his shirt and cranes his head to the side, like a victim willingly offering himself to a vampire. Sure enough, her sloppy, slanted scrawl is there. She reaches up and brushes it with her thumb, and his grip on her hand tightens. It’s sensitive. She’s _definitely_ going to use that information later.

“Well, Murdock, how ‘bout you answer the question?” she asks, tapping his soul mark. “Who the hell _are_ you? You were my attorney. What about now?”

“Ideally, I’m yours.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This is my first fic, and I wrote it on a whim earlier tonight. If you liked this, please leave a kudos and a comment, and maybe I'll expand this into a two-shot


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